merlin wrote:
Arthur McA. Miller, Ph.D. *Mac*. Mac Miller.
To me? A professor, poetry teacher, faculty advisor, thesis committee member, bon vivant, raconteur, when-I-needed-it ass-kicker, John Ruskin historian, secret caregiver, maniac, and my fucking personal hero for at least three semesters. Handful of random Mac moments:
1. Told me a paragraph in a paper on Kurt Vonnegut was “curiously like whipping a dead mule with misplaced rhetoric”
2. Remarked to our terrified, slack-jawed poetry workshop that he thought one of the week’s less successful drafts didn’t actualy need an ending—”_Because it might as well just keep going on ***forever***!_” This was not intended as a compliment.
3. Occasionally telegraphed his relative stress by lighting a new cigarette before the previous one was half-done.
Read the rest of Merlin’s post here
For a variety of reasons this entire post (so please click the link above) is just plain special to me:
-Dad and Mom first met at New College - albeit briefly with Dad as Mom’s counselor
-Dad TA’d in grad school for legends like this guy - FL gets no academic love, but giants like Mac seemed to dot the USF, New College, and most FL campuses
-It instantly reminded me of Jack Belt, perhaps one of the most brilliant profs I had
The take away:
If I could go to school for a living I would - I’m serious - even a blood thirsty start up guy loves nothing more than learning, that’s why I build business and products and get obsessed with creation. Doing is the core of learning!
I can’t say I live with a lot of regrets, especially after the last couple years I’ve had, but I can’t say I won’t ever go back to school either.
